


Mental Breakout

by thisiswhyri



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angsty Schmoop, Cuddling & Snuggling, Fluff, Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mental Institutions, Pining, Post-Reichenbach, Schmoop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-26
Updated: 2013-11-26
Packaged: 2018-01-02 16:37:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1059108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisiswhyri/pseuds/thisiswhyri
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the prompt: John breaks Sherlock out of a mental institution.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mental Breakout

He sat up abruptly when he saw him, weaving through the white coats like one of their own, stocky glasses askew on the tip of his nose.

Sherlock squinted and cursed himself and his bad vision through the murky glass, wondering if he really had gone mad in this godforsaken place.

“John?” He mumbled, throat parched and voice rusty from disuse. The figure intensified in the window. It nodded and whispered, “Yes.”

A cracked smile stretched over Sherlock’s face as he pushed up from the hard, white bed and wobbled over to the door.

John slid a card into the doorframe, and Sherlock’s escape slid open silently. “Quickly,” John muttered.

They tottered down the emergency stairs, making sure the white coats weren’t looking, and flew out the alley door, sounding an alarm.

They ran into the street, sprinting as fast as they could, the sirens that had been building in the distance getting fainter and fainter with each pound of their feet on the pavement.

When the sirens faded completely, they stopped, slapping their bodies against a graffiti-covered wall in some squalid alleyway of London.

Sherlock was bent over, stomach swirling unpleasantly when John gestured to a sordid black door enveloped by the wall.

He stumbled into the door and fumbled around for a light switch to illuminate the pitch-black room before him. John’s hand snaked beside his, and Sherlock heard a sudden click.

Light flooded the space as he stumbled to a fraying couch he had spied, his fingers clamped across his eyes. John shambled across the room and settled into an equally dilapidated wingback chair.

Sherlock glanced around the room taking in the decrepit furniture and crumbling walls.

A blinking light fixture swayed in time with the buzzing AC, complete with mildewed air. His gaze drifted over to John, sitting cross-legged, staring straight back at him.

All of his specialized skills Sherlock had discarded at the institution in favor of staying conscious and alive, leaving no more than a shell and memories of what he had been.

He had so many questions now, all starting the same.

“How?” he breathed, having regained his stomach from their earlier getaway.

John grew troubled at Sherlock’s loss, his face harder than Sherlock had ever seen before. John cleared his throat. He looked away. He twiddled his thumbs.

The anxiety of the last decade began to etch itself into the lines on his face, defining his fear and desperation.

Sherlock no longer needed an explanation.

“Amazing,” He whispered. “Fantastic.” John looked at Sherlock, eyes softening.

Neither moved. They were rooted to their seats, frozen, gazing at each other.

Sherlock could wait no more.

He lunged, and John met him halfway, barreling him back into the couch, clutching at each other’s clothing, fingers scrabbling for hold across the other’s back.

They were an awkward tangle of bones and malnutrition, but neither cared.

They were together after such a long time, after pining away for years without a seeming end.

Sherlock turned his lips against John’s cheek and whispered, “Extraordinary, quite extraordinary.”


End file.
